Is the present war so much higher and holier than the war of the Revolution, that the employment of black soldiers would lower its character or debase its purpose? Are our Generals so much better than Washington, and Jefferson, and Jackson, that they may be contaminated by the apparition of negro regiments in their camps?”
(“What Our Fathers Did,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Sept. 20, 1862)
”African-Americans had fought bravely in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812, yet when they tried to enlist at the beginning of the Civil War they were turned away. The conflict was, in the view of the War Department, a “white man’s war.” The Lincoln administration considered authorizing the use of black troops, but did not for fear of losing allegiance of the border states.
When Generals John C. Fremont in Missouri and David Hunter in South Carolina attempted to emancipate slaves and train them as soldiers, Lincoln ordered them to stop. Such actions, however, fueled continued debate. Passage of the Second Confiscation and Militia Act (July 1862) and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (January 1863) finally allowed for the formal enlistment of black troops into the ranks of the Union Army.
First Regiment Louisiana Native Guards
The Louisiana Native Guards, free African-Americans from New Orleans, first offered their services to the Confederacy in 1861, but without success. After Union capture of the city, General Benjamin Butler reorganized the Native Guards and mustered them into federal service. They became the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, the first officially sanctioned black regiment in the Union Army.
Courtesy of Trustees of the Boston Public Library
Soldier from the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry
One of the first black regiments raised, the 1st South Carolina was also one the first, black or white, to see service before its official recognition as a military unit. The soldiers depicted in this image wear a uniform of regulation issue except for the red trousers which were probably used as an enlistment inducement.
Painting by Don Troiani
Petition to the General Court, 1861
Boston's Black community had long advocated for the right to serve in the military, and called for repeal of the laws that restricted that service. They petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for the removal of the word "white" from the state militia law in 1861, and the same year organized a black drill society in Boston.
Massachusetts Archives
Read a transcript of the petition
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
We the undersigned colored citizens of Boston respectfully pray your Honorable body to remove the word "white" from that part of the statutes of the Common-wealth known as the militia law.
We make this prayer first because such a distinction is anomalous to the spirit of justice and equality pervading all the other laws of this commonwealth.
Secondly because we desire to be recognized by the law as competent to and worthy of defending our homes and the government that protects those homes.
- J. Sella Martin
- Henry Smith
- Joseph S. Barbados
- Simon P. Adams
- Ruby [illegible]
- Enoch Saunders
- James T. Williams
- Caleb G. Henry
- H.H.G. Scott
- Fleming T. Johnson
- Charles Bossea
- James J. Gardner
- John H. Jenkins
- Alexander Roberts
- T.W. Smith
- J.T. Halley
- T.W. Steamburg
- Charles Jackson
- John H. Brown
- W.H. Davis
- Robert Johnson JR
- Ira N. Gray
- John Wright
- A.L. Barrett
- E. Francis Gray
- John S. Thompson JR
- T.G. Williams
- F. B. Joy
- D. Orlando Fisk